Un-cooled bolometer camera designs are very sophisticated, achieving high performance but at a high cost. Much of the cost of the camera is related to the cost of the array, the readout electronics, the addressing carbon metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) in the array, the display electronics, and various other electronics systems. These features are all included to achieve high performance image, but at a high cost.
In such devices, infrared light from a target is imaged onto an array containing many pixels. This light, when illuminating a typical bolometer pixel, creates a change in the resistance of a “temperature sensing film” which is fabricated from a vanadium oxide (VOx) material.
Such a bolometer readout is achieved by forming these pixels on top of CMOS electronics which provide the row and column multiplexed addressing of a bias current which interrogates each pixel for a resistance change produced by the temperature increase caused by absorbed long wavelength infrared (LWIR) target radiation. The readout is achieved via CMOS-bolometer integration. These devices may also have limited responsivity, may have issues with noise, and utilize electrical contact to the VOx material, which may inhibit thermal isolation, in some implementations.